Apple Maps versus Google Maps at the University of the Philippines

Apple on the left, Google on the right. Click for a larger image.

No commentary necessary.

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The worst thing about the Apple iPhone 5 is that it comes with iOS6

Trying to search for the nearest branch of a cafe last night on a Apple iPhone 4, updated to iOS 6 is that the Maps application is virtually useless in the Philippines. I have read complaints from users abroad saying that it takes them to the wrong place. No similar problems in the Philippines. It won't know the place exists in the first place. 

Google Maps finds every branch in the country, and even some obscure places with the same name I did not know existed.

The problem would be a poor database. For places in the database, trial and error will be needed to find out if they are in the correct place.  Another issue, could be typographical errors so the Map will not identify the place you are looking for. A friend of mine on her iPad 3 tweeted "check out UPD map. Kalayaan residence hall typed as 'Kalayaan Schoolicidence' haha!." A simple spell check should have detected that. 

Over time that will probably be corrected. But this habit of Apple launching beta software is getting tiring. Last year, it launched Siri, as a beta, but from Apple advertisements you would not think it was beta software. But, it was not a big deal. It was an additional feature which you could simply ignore.

Mapping and locations software is one of the key features what makes a smartphone a smartphone. Apple's iOS5 had a very good map and locations software, in Google Maps and Places. iOS6, well it uses Apple Maps, which should not even be called Apple Maps Beta. It should be considered an Alpha release. 

So while Apple wows us with supposedly better 3D views and features, basically, iOS6 throws all the nice hardware in the iPhone 5 back to the stone age.

Apple, please fix Maps. In the meantime, give users back Google Maps.

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Speculating on the Google Galaxy Nexus II - Part 2

In the first part of this article, I wrote about what Google where Google should be conservative with its Google Nexus S II. But there are several areas where the new Nexus should step up.

5 MP camera to 8 MP. When the Google Nexus One came out it had a 5 MP camera, big for its day. While not a great shooter, the specs sheet looked right. Two versions later, the Nexus phone is still on a 5 MP camera. When the Galaxy Nexus launched last year, it was the only "flagship" grade phone with a 5 MP camera, everyone else having moved on to 8 MP or larger camera. Google should rectify that this year. 

Micro SDCard slot.  The last two Nexus phones, drop the MicroSD card. This year HTC and Sony followed suit with most of their phones. Samsung, the top selling Android manufacturer, keeps a MicroSD card on its phones. This is a feature Android users who already have 32 GB, 64 GB and even 128 GB MicroSD cards on their phone want.

Bigger battery. Increases in processing power will be felt only the gamers, and with Android 4.1.1, every phone fortunate enough to get it will run faster. But longer battery life is someone everyone can benefit from. It is also the weakest spot of Android top competitor, the Apple iPhone 5. 

If Motorola can put a 2530 mAh battery in its 8.4 mm Motorola DROID RAZR HD, and keep the weight down to a reasonable 146 grams, Google should consider doing the same with its Galaxy Nexus S II. This alone will make this phone a compelling option in the sea of Androids. 

Super AMOLED Plus Display? Another thing the Galaxy Nexus was scored for was the 720p Super AMOLED PenTile matrix display. I have no issues with the 720p display on the Galaxy Nexus, putting a Super AMOLED Plus display will keep the purist quite, and would give the phone more of a wow factor. Still, I am fine with the current display.

So, will a Galaxy Nexus, with a faster processor, upgraded camera,  MicroSD card slot and bigger battery be enough for you to make a buy decision on a Nexus phone?

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Speculating on the Google Galaxy Nexus II - Part 1

Rumor is Google will be building three Nexus phones this year, which should be on sale be the end of the year. One Nexus, to be built by Sony, is rumored to be focus on the camera. A second Nexus, to be built by LG is said to be a waterproof and dust proof Nexus phone. The the third, well it would be the successor of the Google Galaxy Nexus, and is rumored to be built by Samsung.

Windows Phone 8 devices now match the specifications of high end Android phones. The new 4-inch Apple iPhone 5 basically matches the specifications of what a high end 4-inch Android would be like (if high end 4-inch Android phones were still constructed, the smallest high end Android phones these days are 4.3-inches). What should Google do with its next Galaxy Nexus S?

Where Google should maintain the status quo.

4.65-inch display. The 4.65 inch display of the Google Galaxy Nexus, with the onscreen keys is about the equivalent of a 4.4-inch display with dedicated hardware buttons. It is not a monster phone anymore by current Android standards These days, 4.7 to 4.8 inch displays with dedicated hardware buttons are the new Android monster phones. Google could come out with a 5-inch phone with dedicates software keys. This would essentially be a Samsung Galaxy S III with on-screen keys. But I think Google should leave the monster smartphone clash to its OEM's. The large a phone gets, the more it serves a niche market. 

Instead Google should focus on building a slightly smaller frame around its current 4.65-inch display. Cut 1-2 mm from the width, and 2-4 mm from the height, and give the same sized display in a smaller package. 

1GB of RAM. The Google Galaxy Nexus already has 1 GB of RAM. It could go to 2 GB's just to upstage the Apple iPhone 5 and it Windows Phone rivals. To me this would make little sense. A Nexus phone runs vanilla Android. Much lighter than the OEM versions with TouchWiz, Sense or other interface which eat more RAM. 

The Android OS should not evolve to something that needs more than 512 GB of RAM for at least the next version (Key Lime Pie) and not more than 1 GB of RAM for the 2014 version of Android. Google should keep its next Nexus to just 1 GB of RAM. Google should leave the 2 GB frontier to its OEM partners.

The processor. While you now have quad core Kraits and ARM Cortex-A15's being available, for the same reason that Google's Galaxy Nexus need not have 2 GB of RAM, it also does not have to come with the most spectacular processor. The Qualcomm's S4 with its dual core Kraits in would be a fine option. If Samsung or Nvidia can get an on-chip LTE solution in their chipsets on time, a Exynos quad or quad core Tegra 3, a quad core chip would be a strong marketing point, though not necessarily better than an Qualcomm S4.

The cheap feeling case. Whether you make a case from aluminum or plastic or some other premium quality material, if you want to remove the last trace of creak in a case, it is easy remove the battery cover. But Android owners expect a user replaceable battery, and a bit of creak is worth having the option to replace batteries or replace it with an extended battery.

So basically, what I am describing here so far is a Google Galaxy Nexus with an updated processor in a trimmed down package. But there are some area where Google should make substantial changes, to one up the competition.

Part 2 of this article is here.

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Underwhelmed by the Apple iPhone 5 - Why?

Looking at the local forums and around the web, some sectors are underwhelmed by the Apple iPhone 5, including owners of the iPhone 4S, and I really cannot fathom why. The Apple iPhone 4S was disappointing, but exactly what it wrong with the iPhone 5. Lets gets two things out of the way:

I am not likely to buy an iPhone, but it is more of a personal preference. I got used to Windows Mobile and Nokia's Symbian OS which allowed me to display my next appointment on my home screen, and the calendar and tasks is one of the key uses for me of a smartphone. I have five home screens on my Android phone, four of which are devoted to calendars (next appointment/agenda/calendar/tasks). Windows Phone 8 would be a viable alternative to me. But these are subjective preferences, so lets get that out of the way, I want to find out what current Apple iPhone owners think,

• NFC.  we don't have any kind of significant NFC implementation in the Philippines, so this is a non-issue.

• LTE. It is not certain whether the Apple iPhone 5 will support out local LTE networks (but it looks to be compatible), but at present LTE is not being offered as a package for mobile phones, so it is too early to comment on this issue.  

• Battery life. I will wait for GSMArena's battery life tests before commenting on this.

• Stock Apple features. Lets not talk about stock Apple features like non-user replaceable batteries, absence of a MicoSD slot or Bluetooth file transfer. I am writing this more for iPhone users, how long ago decided these were unnecessary.

The new 4-inch display?  I think Apple's new 4-inch display with is a big move in the right direction. The move to 16:9 aspect ratio, from a 3:2 aspect ratio makes the iPhone 5 more industry standard compliant. 

While I personally find the 4-inch display smaller than I would like, having considered the 4.3-inch display the "correct" size since HTC's HD2, the longer 4-inch display was a great choice for Apple. Over 200 million iPhones have been sold, so many owners like the current size. The iPhone 5 has a larger screen while maintaining the width of the current iPhone. It is also much lighter. 

The millions of iPhone users will not find the iPhone 5 uncomfortably large. It may not impress the Android crowd. but I do not think Apple should make monster sized phones unless they make it in more than one size. Not everyone wants a larger device.

The unknown processor? No is sure what processor and graphics processing unit combo is in the iPhone 5, but we are told it is twice as fast as the previous iPhone. How it stacks up to the rest of the world is irrelevant. Apple and its developers will be building around the Apple iPad 3, which really is not faster than the Apple iPad 2 (all the iPad 3 additional graphics power and RAM is needed to keep its higher resolution display of the iPad 3 running at the same speed as the iPad 2). 

Basically, for the next two years all iOS apps will run with a dual core A9 processor, PowerVR SGX543MP2 and 512 MB of RAM will be all that is needed for iOS apps to run well. The additional power provided by the iPhone 5 is more for future proofing in its third year of use.

The 8MP camera? The only worthwhile feature, in my opinion of the iPhone 4S was the camera. I really see little room for improvement, and the iPhone 5 brings incremental improvements in this regard. Many are pointing to Nokia Lumia 920 as the standard setter in this regard. For me, improvement in camera performance is not worth it if it means having to create a 185 gram brick. It is still a smarphone first. To put the Nokia Lumia 920's weight in perspective, the Samsung Galaxy S III weighs in at  133 grams and Apple iPhone 5 weighs in at 112 grams.

My only gripes. My only gripe would be ergonomics and the physical home button. Something with the curved back of the older iPhone 3GS would be much more comfortable in hand.  But in fairness the iPhone 4/4S/5 is more pleasing to the eye than the 3GS.

As for the physical home button, they break, They break on the iPhone and on all other phones (I am looking at you Samsung). So why not just go with a capacitative one or on screen buttons?

That is it for me. And both my gripes are rather subjective. I like this phone more than any previous iPhone, I am just like to tinker too much and Android @root is impossible to beat in that respect, its open source.

So you tell me. What is not to like in the new iPhone 5?

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Smartphones by the Numbers

500 million. Android No. 500 million was activated earlier this month somewhere in the world, with 1.3 million being activated by the day. At hat rate, you could expect to see Android No. 1 Billion activated before this time next year.

400 million. Apple has sold over 400 million iOS (iPhones, iPads and iPod Touch) devices in the past five years. You can expect them go past 500 million by middle of next year.

0. The number of BlackBerry's sold by some retailers last month (Source: techradar)

5952 Quadrant Points - HTC, smarting from the drubbing its One X received at the hands of tweaked Android 4.04 to maximize the performance of its Tegra 3 chipset resulting in almost 6000 points in the quadrant benchmarks, leaving the Galaxy S III at a far second place with 5395 (Source: GSM Arena)

342 ppi. With the new iPhone 5 being launched with a display with 326 pixels per inch, and the Nokia Lumia with a 332 pixel per in display, Sony can hold on to the sharpest smartphone display in the world title with the 342 ppi displays on their Xperia S and Xperia acro S.

6.68 mm. While Apple claimed at its Apple iPhone 5 launch that it was the thinnest smartphone in the world at 7.6 mm, they seem to have forgotten about the 7.1 mm thin Motorola RAZR's and the world thinnest smartphone, or 6.7 mm Huawei Ascend P1s.   

32,000. The number of Chinese students forced to work in Foxconn plants to build Apple iPhones (Source: New York Times)

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The FBI was not the Source of the Leaked UDID's. It was Apple's fault.

Last week, the news circulated that the hacker group Anonymous had stolen 12 million Apple device identifiers from an FBI laptop.

The truth, it now turns out was that it was Apple's fault. NBC news discovered that the unique device identifiers (UDIDs) came instead from one of the hundreds of companies that Apple’s app model has allowed to track and identify the company’s devices. This is part of an extensive data-sharing network.

The leaked data to a small Florida app publisher called Blue Toad. Blue Toad has confirmed that it was the source of the breach.

UDIDs are identifiers, linked to iPads, iPhones and iPod's, are designed to allow ad networks and app makers to track devices.  Apparently, these UDID's are not data that Apple keeps secure, but instead are widely available to hundred of app developers. Apple’s lax privacy model has resulted in a situation where  ad firms, developers and parties like Blue Toad  can amass large amounts of user data. The worse part is, users whose UDID's were leaked from Blue Toad do not know the company. They have never transacted with Blue Toad or downloaded an app from them. Blue Toad provides services to app developers and not directly to customers.

Apple has started to phase out the UDID's.

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Personalized Birthday Google Doodle's

When I opened my web browser this morning, I was surprised to see a birthday doodle on the Google search page.

I wondered who shared birthdays with me. When I moved the cursor over the doodle to check it, I saw a birthday greeting for me pop-up.

Thanks Google. It did make my morining. Now lets just hope that you live by your "Do no evil" credo. Now, if they got the number of candles right that would really be impressive (and scarier) :)

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Android Finally Surpasses Symbian as the Top Mobile Smartphone OS in the Philippines

Last month, Google Android operating system became the top mobile operating system in use in the Philippines, according to statistics gather by StatCounter. Please note, these statistics do not measure sales, but page impressions. 

Click for a larger image

As of end of August Android was at 28.2%, with SymbianOS trailing at 25.8%. But from the chart the trend is pretty clear. Every loss for the Symbian OS, is a gain for the Android OS.

Symbian Series 40 features phone still represent 13.2% of the total, so Nokia phones are still on top in terms of online use, with a total of 39% of page impressions being generated by these phones. 

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US Federal Judge upholds HTC LTE patents against Apple

HTC is suing Apple claiming infringement on patents related to LTE technology. HTC was the first to bring a touchscreen LTE enabled model to the United States. HTC purchased the LTE patents from ADC Telecommunications in April 2011 for $75 million. Apple was trying to block use of the patents because HTC purchased them just to aggressively use them in court. 

Judge Thomas Pender shot down that argument, "I don’t care if they bought these patents to sue you or not. They are a property right. Clear and convincing means something to me. I have to be pretty darn certain a U.S. patent is invalid." 

If HTC wins the case, they will have the right to seek an import ban in the U.S. for the Apple iPhone if it comes to market with LTE connectivity, and the latest LTE enabled model of the Apple iPad. 

(Source: Phone Arena)

Samsung, reeling over its recent loss to Apple, is also planning to sue Apple for its LTE related intellectual property. 

All this is getting to be ridiculous, especially if you look at the Samsung versus Apple fight. Apple won in the US. Samsung has won in Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. The two companies came to a draw in South Korea. So, after five rounds, no clear winner, but it looks like you may get a US market which would be more restricted than the rest of the world. 

Now LTE technology will bring on a new round of battles, and I think it is likely, different jurisdictions will rule differently.

Apple started all this. They should probably be the ones to take the first moves to end it.

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Nokia Lumia 920 Pureview Videos and Photos Faked

Nokia's launch of its new Nokia Lumia 920 turn out into a rather embarrassing affair. The Verge discovered that Nokia video advertisement which shows off the PureView's image stabilization technology was faked. The video shows a young man and woman riding bikes along a river. The ad shows side-by-side video, on the left, Nokia shows the non-stabilized version and on the right the ad shows the an video purportedly captured using Nokia's optical image stabilization technology. The only problem is that the video is faked. Read more about the sordid details on The Verge.

After Nokia issued an apology for the fake video, it turned out even still images images which were displayed as still sample images of the Nokia Lumia 920 were also discovered to be fakes. Again, read more details from The Verge here.

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A Trojan that Steals Mac OS X and Linux Password Discovered

Russian anti-virus company Doctor Web discovered a cross-platform backdoor that runs under Mac OS X and Linux. That Mac OS X is not immune from malware may surprise some, but really that is old news. One attacking Linux too, well that is more surprising. 

This malicious program, BackDoor.Wirenet.1, is designed to steal passwords stored by a number of popular applications and also operates as a keylogger (it sends gathered keyboard input data to intruders). It's not clear how BackDoor.Wirenet.1, spreads. 

Looks like it might be time to get some anti-malware protection for your Linux box, or for you Mac, if you haven't already.

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SMS Security Flaw Affects only Apple's iPhone and iOS Devices

A week ago,  I wrote about the SMS security flaw discovered on Apple's iPhone which could be used be used to make it appear that the SMS one sender, and when you reply send the SMS to a mobile number different from the one that is displayed on phones screen. 

Apple responded by suggesting the SMS is not a secure form or communication and the flaw was with SMS itself, and suggested using iMessage instead. iMessage is basically an instant messaging application which can be used to communicate with other Apple devices.

"Apple takes security very seriously. When using iMessage instead of SMS, addresses are verified which protects against these kinds of spoofing attacks. One of the limitations of SMS is that it allows messages to be sent with spoofed addresses to any phone, so we urge customers to be extremely careful if they're directed to an unknown website or address over SMS." (Source: Engadget).

Tech Radar, citing a study conducted by security firm AdaptiveMobile found that the flaw is not with SMS in general but limited only to iOS devices. 

"We have tested this issue on Android, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, and Symbian phones," said Cathal McDaid, security consultant at AdaptiveMobile, in a statement to CNET, "and most of them simply ignore the 'reply address' field or display both the 'real' originating address and the reply address as per the specification recommendations. 

"The iPhone, so far," he continued, "is the only device which does not comply with these security recommendations."

Instead of suggesting users use iMessage, Apple should simple fix this flaw. Apparently, everyone else has.

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Apple v. Samsung - Which Patents Infringed

You probably read about Apple's US$1 billion win against Samsung in a US Court. Trying to figures our was was infringe is difficult based on the press coverage. I did find a good article on CNET which breaks it all down. The CNET article has a comprehensive list of which Samsung devices infringe and I suggest you take a look at that article. In brief this is a list of the Apple patents upheld:

Patents -

• '381 patent - This patent covers "the 'rubber band' effect where a page 'bounces' when a user scrolls to the bottom" and "includes touch-screen actions like dragging documents and multi-touch capabilities like pinch to zoom and twist to rotate."
• '915 patent - This patent "relates to a device capable of distinguishing between a single-touch scroll operation and a mult-itouch pinch-to-zoom operation."
• '163 patent - This patent covers behavior like "how you can double-tap a touch screen to enlarge and center portions of Web page, photo, or document." 
• '305 patent - This one is more ornamental in natures and "centers on a grid of rounded square icons against a black background."
• Two other hardware patents are covered, the '677 patent and the '087 patent, which covers the appearance of a device. 

Looking at the list in the CNET article on earlier Samsung designs were found to violate the '305, '677 and '087 patents. So on these patents, it looks more like an issue of paying damages more than anything else.

The '381. '915 and '163 patents being upheld are more problematic. While Apple did not invent the touchscreen, it owns a lot of patents covering how they are used which could be problematic for all touchscreen devices to work around.

Update: Apparently, pinch to zoom is not covered in the case.

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Blogging from a Tablet - The Chrome Experience

Blogging from a mobile device has always been difficult. While there is am official Blogger app from Google, for some reason it is not available in my country. I tried doing this a year and a half ago, but the stock browser just could not navigate the Blogger website properly.

Having upgraded my wife's Samsung Galaxy Tab to Android 4.0.4, courtesy of CyanogemMod 9, I decided to give it another go using the Google Chrome browser. 

The Android version of the Google Chrome really is an amazing web browser which gives me full access to Google's Blogger editing tools. Basically, I can pretty much do anything which I could do on my laptop.

I was able to post a hyper link, grab a picture from the web and upload it, justify the margins of my paragraphs... If you have not used Bloggers interface, I guess it is hard to appreciate my amazement. Others can tell me it can be done with other browsers. Yes, it can. It was just so difficult I never bothered to complete a post. Well, now I have.

Well, I have bored you enough.

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Buying Music Online from MyMusicStore Philippines

There are several sources from which you can buy music online. I would recommend you try buying from a local outfit, MyMusicStore Philippines. 

When you visit MyMusicStore's website you will find a nice and cleanly laid out site. You can use the search bar to look for a title, album, or find music by the name of the artist or band. There is also a a top chart list and a list of new singles. When you search for singles you can listen to a short preview just to make sure you are buying is the correct one.

   

What is really interesting is your payment options. You can use a credit card or PayPal, but you can also pay through a load on a Smart or SmartBro SIM. You can also pay through MyMusicStore Gift Cards.

Okay. So, we decided to buy "The Last Song I Will Write for You" by David Cook for Php35. Loaded up Php60 on my Smart Bro SIM and proceeded to make the purchase. After registering on the site and confirming purchase, a SMS was sent to my tablet with a PIN code. You have 48 hours from receipt of the PIN code to download the song. The song we bought came in a nice 44.1kHz/256kpbs MP3 format. The download was really fast. 

Unlike some other online Music Stores which keep track of your purchases and allow you to re-download songs you bought at any time, so make sure to keep a back-up of what you bought.  

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Sony Xperia S to get De Facto Nexus Status

Jean-Baptiste Queru, Google's top Android Open-Source Tech Dude (well, actually Technical Lead of Google's Android Open Source Project) announced on Google Groups that the Sony Xperia S will be getting updates directly from Google.

Quere said "For a new challenge, I'd like to try to go one step further, and to target some hardware beyond the usual categories. I've added a git project for the Sony LT26, i.e. Xperia S. This seems like a good target: it's a powerful current GSM device, with an unlockable bootloader, from a manufacturer that has always been very friendly to AOSP."

The Sony Xperia S was an interesting device. It had a 4.3-inch 720p display in a market of Android flagship phones with larger 4.7 to 4.8-inch 720p displays. The only spoiler in the package, is that while its competitors came with new for 2012 chipsets, the Nvidia Tegra 3, Qualcomm S4 and Samsung Exynos Quad, the Xperia S came with a dual core Qualcomm S3 which we first saw in the HTC Sensation back in the first half of 2011. All-in-all, the Xperia S is like a sleek car with a mediocre engine under the hood. Still, Sony did a good job with the Qualcomm S3, squeezing out more performance from the chipset than any other OEM ever did. 

All of a sudden, the Sony Xperia S looks a lot more interesting. Priced substantially lower than its competitors, being a "mid-sized" offering and now with updates direct from Google's AOSP team. Even more interesting, it looks like the Xperia S will become the platform for a Google Skunkworks project for the creation of the next iteration of Android.

"Contributions are strongly encouraged, and there should be more freedom than usual to submit experimental changes since that won't impact the devices that Google is most directly involved in," Quere said.  

So, the somewhat boring Sony Xperia S, might now become transformed as the home of the latest cutting edge Android code.

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The Power of Open Source

Love or hate Windows, one really good thing about Microsoft is that they support a Windows version forever. Well, not literally forever,  but longer than the computer you bought it with is likely to last. Todays new generation computers, made up of smartphones and tablets, are not as lucky. One to two years is what you are likely to get. 

Apple's original iPad, released in March 2010, came with  iOS 4, was upgraded to for two years all the way to iOS 5.1. It wont be getting iOS 6 which will be rolling out to other iOS devices this September.  The Google Nexus One launched in January 2010, started life with Eclair (Android 2.1) and moved on to Gingerbread (Android 2.3). It did not officially get Ice Cream Sandwich, released on October 2011. Basically, you can expect high end devices to get the latest OS for 18-months to 2-years. That does not sound all the impressive.

Many devices are less fortunate. The Samsung Galaxy Tab and HTC Desire HD, both released on October 2010, did not get official an official Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0) updates from Samsung and HTC. Pretty much it got OS updates for just 12-months. Notably, these two devices are more powerful than several new Android phones and tablets which today come with Ice Cream Sandwich out of the box.

But Android is open source. This means, that someone else can legally build what the the Original Equipment Manufacturer does not. This month I upgraded a HTC Desire HD to Android 4.0.4 courtesy of the Blackout ICS Incredible ROM Blackout Team. The Samsung Galaxy Tab got Ice Cream Sandwich via CM9 form the CyanogenMod Team. These are stable ROM's which I now use as my daily drivers and based on months of test versions being released. This illustrates the power of open source. Two obsolete devices are now good for use for another year. And it does not end there. Jelly Bean (Android 4.1) ROM's for both devices have been on beta tests for over a month now. 

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Apple iPhone SMS flaw discovered. Apple's solution, use iMessage instead.

Last Friday, pod2g's discovered a flaw in the SMS application used in the Apple iPhone. The flaw allows a sender of a malicious address to make it appear that the message comes from a trusted source. This could allow "pirates could send a message that seems to come from the bank of the receiver asking for some private information, or inviting them to go to a dedicated website." This flaw is still present in the latest beta of the next version of iOS6 which will be released together with the next iPhone. 

Apple's response to the matter has been to effectively say use iMessage instead:

"Apple takes security very seriously. When using iMessage instead of SMS, addresses are verified which protects against these kinds of spoofing attacks. One of the limitations of SMS is that it allows messages to be sent with spoofed addresses to any phone, so we urge customers to be extremely careful if they're directed to an unknown website or address over SMS." (Source: Engadget).

The response is a bit odd. Instead of promising a fix, Apple seems to be saying that you really cannot trust a SMS message received on an iPhone. I am not sure if Apple has no plans to fix the problem or simply want's to downplay the issue now, since there is no time to implement a fix before the release of the next iPhone. In any event, using iMessage is not a solution. Not everyone is on an iPhone, and those that are, are not all on unlimited data plans. And what about messages from other people, you cannot always reply by iMessage. 

In any event, the nature of the flaw now being public, best advice is do not give complete trust that SMS messages received from your iPhone come from the source indicated in the message. Basically, do not send reply with any sensitive information via SMS and do not click website links in SMS messages you receive.

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Smartphones: What's Coming

The second quarter of every year sees the unveiling of the latest Android phones, this year bannered by Samsung Galaxy S III, HTC One X, HTC One S and LG Optimus 4X HD. The third quarter of this year should be equally eventful:

• August 29, 2012 - Samsung Galaxy Note II (launch)
• September 5, 2012 - Nokia Windows Phone 8 (announcement)
• September 12, 2012 - Next Apple iPhone (launch)
• September 2012 - HTC Windows Phone 8 devices

In the fourth quarter of this year, around October or November you can expect to see the new Windows Phone 8 devices from Samsung, and of course the next Google Nexus phone.

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